Survival of the fittest


A bird on a branch, reflecting on existence;
Realizing everything it thought it knew about mortality,
Was really just how to show its own ignorance.
No possibility of death as it rides upon the wind so free;
Flying so high above the land,
That nothing could bring this day to an end
And there is still so much more to see.


An idea of creation so profound that it seemed the only truth,
But all it knew has come apart
And it has lost faith in all that which it views.
Everything has changed in the blink of an eye
And a stitch in time is not saving; it is slipping and sliding,
As the bird falls down from way up on high.


The friend it saw only yesterday has disappeared from its mind’s eye.
Gone in a second of time, its wings no longer flap
And the rotting flesh is more or less a piece of magpie pie.
Gone from its sight; no conversation in the morning light.
No dawn chorus, no warning; no more soaring.
Just a ghost of a life that has passed it by.


Eaten alive by the cat in the night;
The bird that no longer sings is no longer spotted flying high.
For that is that; it has no goodbyes,
So the bird rises from its branch and flies,
Up into in the great blue sky.


(C)2016 Aa Harvey. All Rights Reserved.